Who Is Tied to Someone Else's Glove
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: After Camelot falls, Gwen stayed by Arthur's side because there was nowhere else she could be, nowhere else where she could turn. FUTURE FIC. GwenxArthur. Heavily implied ArthurxMerlin, GwenxMorgana and GwenxLancelot. ONE SHOT. FINISHED.


**Who Is Tied to Someone Else's Glove.**

In her nightmares, Gwen still remembers the fight: Morgana's power, Merlin's power, Arthur injured and trying to reach them both, she calling for them. She remembers the rain and she remembers the dragon, and most of all, she remembers how both Morgana and Merlin fell.

...

They searched for them for weeks. Under every rock, tree and mound of earth that battle had caused; Arthur literally turned the whole kingdom upside down as he searched for survivals but more importantly, for them both. But although the injured and dead piled over each other, there was no sign of Morgana nor Merlin at all.

Gwen stayed by Arthur's side because there was nowhere else she could be, nowhere else where she could turn. And one day, Arthur simply apologized to her. His people needed him, and Gwen knew that even if it broke his heart, Arthur would do what he must. So that day she carved Morgana's and Merlin's name on the bark of a tree and she left flowers for them both and then neither she nor Arthur cried, the two of them too exhausted, too broken hearted to do so.

Eventually, she rested her head against Arthur's shoulder and Arthur's arm curled around her own shoulders, and they stayed there until the sun rose again and they both had to go back to work.

"I'll probably be late for supper, Gwen," Arthur said as he picked up Excalibur and his jacket.

"I'll be waiting," she answered with a smile, thinking of all the things she still had to do.

It wasn't until later that she realized that Arthur had called her Gwen rather than Guiniveve. Years later, as she thinks about all the turns the story took, she thinks that it might have been the last time she ever thought of Arthur as 'lord'.

...

About a year after the fight, when they are barely starting the reparations for the castle (because Arthur said that the first thing to do was help the people, because he wasn't going to sleep in a castle while his people suffered in the cold), Arthur proposes to her.

It's not a romantic proposition. They're having supper sitting on some logs near the workshop where Gwen works as a blacksmith until someone else comes. They're both dirty, Arthur's hair looking beige instead of blond because of the dust, and Gwen doesn't want to think about all the sooth that must be on her face.

And then, as he eats the half of an apple – he offered her the other half – he asks, his voice neutral.

"Would you marry me?"

Gwen stares at him, almost dropping the apple. She blinks, and then waits for Arthur to say it's some sort of joke, but Arthur just turns to look at her, his expression still neutral.

"It's perfectly fine to say no."

After the initial surprise, Gwen makes herself breathe again as she bites her apple, looking at Arthur again.

"Shouldn't you marry a princess? Someone who might help make Camelot stronger?"

"They said that," Arthur agrees before he sighs, referring most likely to his knights, the people that Arthur has already started the Knights of the Round Table. "But I want to marry someone I can trust, and someone who will help me become the king I need to be. And the people of Camelot love you, Gwen. Even more, you know them. You wouldn't be some distant queen staying as away as possible from their troubles. You'd want to help them."

Like Merlin, she thinks. Like Morgana. She doesn't mention those names out loud and instead, she bites her apple as well. She thinks she should say no. Arthur should find someone of noble linage to marry, a princess or a countess, or at least someone that actually has more to themselves than the broken skin of their hands.

And then, she thinks of all the things one should say when a king asks your hand in marriage. I'd be honored. I promise I'll make you happy. Perhaps even 'no, I'm sorry, but I don't love you like that'. But she knows the main reason why Arthur is asking: she's the only one that remains who loved Merlin and Morgana, and she's the only one that shares the memories with him. Their ghosts are with them both, and Gwen knows that Arthur is as scared of the emptiness of remembering as she is.

So she simply says: "Yes, " while smiling, and Arthur answers her smile with a ghost of what his own used to be. He bows, takes her hand and kisses the scarred, broken skin of her knuckles, muttering a thank you before he walks away to keep on working.

Gwen thinks about telling someone but there is no-one left. Instead she holds the hand Arthur kissed against her chest for a moment before she sighs, wipes her face with her forearm and she keeps on working as well.

...

The wedding itself is small, Gwen thinks. Not that they could have had much more when most of Camelot was still destroyed and when they were still working to rebuild it. She wonders if Arthur minds it more than she minds it itself. Her father is gone, Gaius as well, Merlin, Morgana. There's no one else she would have asked to be in for her wedding, and the same, she thinks, must hold true for Arthur.

So they marry in front of the people that still believe in Arthur, the people that work day and night to rebuild Camelot as a better city than it ever was. The people that now call her lady Guiniveve, and she has two older women help her tie white flowers upon her hair, and another woman that helps her fix the simple cotton dress that will be her wedding gown.

Arthur himself is wearing his armor, the armor that Gwen has helped fix during the last year more than six times, and when they kiss for the first time, Gwen still thinks that perhaps they might get to be happy.

...

It's been five years, five months and five days since the last battle, and a little less than four years since she and Arthur married and Gwen remains barren. Camelot is growing, the promised land Merlin and Morgana always wanted to see, a place where everyone who suffers is welcome to stay. Arthur is the promised prince, golden and kind, beloved to his people, because when he was Crowned Prince he built enough foundations of friendship that have grown for this land that Arthur loves.

It's been five years. Five years of a marriage that should be a friendship, if she even dared to say as much. She thinks of Morgana everyday, of the days when she was just a maid. Now that Camelot is once again the promised land, she can't work. The people of Camelot love her, what little she can do, but Gwen still aches for more. She aches for the laughter and music she once had, for the touch which was poetry and fire, for the smile that she never knew meant so much.

It's been five years, and Gwen cannot remember the last time she heard Arthur truly laugh. And it's five years, five months and five days that Merlin comes back, scaring the soldiers half to death, even though magic is no longer forbidden within this land.

"I could say a thing or two about your hospitality, milord. Is this the way to greet an old friend who has traveled for so long to pay his respects?"

Gwen can almost swear she hears Arthur's heart stop. He stands up, slowly, carefully, as if he wasn't sure he wouldn't break down if he moved faster. She nods towards the guards, stopping them from interfering.

He's taller than the last time they saw him, his hair longer, curling around his shoulders in a – most likely – tangled mess. Gwen can't be sure if he's thinner or not but he seems so, walking with the aid of a staff. His eyes are the same that Gwen remembers so, so well. His smile as well.

"Is that any way to speak to your king, Merlin? And why are you wearing those rags when you come for an audience?" Arthur asks. Gwen has never heard him sound like this, not when Uther died, not when they had to give up on searching for Morgana and Merlin. The one time it came close was, perhaps, when his people told him that despite it all, they still chose him to be their king.

And Merlin, sweet Merlin, same as always despite the height, despite the scars on his arms, despite the way he limps now as he walks closer, Merlin who always had his heart in his sleeve sounds about to cry even as he laughs. Try as she might, Gwen cannot remember the last time Arthur sounded happy like that.

There's a moment when Arthur, still next to the throne and Merlin, three or four steps away from it, just look at each other. And then – it's hard to know who reaches for whom first, all that Gwen knows is that they're hugging, and that one of them (perhaps both) is sobbing brokenly, and they both cling to each other as if they were drowning.

Without a word, she motions towards the guards to leave and she stands up as well, barely glancing towards them for a moment. Arthur's hand cradles the back of Merlin's head, tanned fingers lost inside black hair Gwen knows that she's invisible to them both.

...

They are not together, Gwen is sure of that. Arthur is too honorable to cheat on his wife, even if it's a wife he loves but isn't in love with, a wife who has failed to give him a child after five years, a wife who could only wait with him those nights when the dreams where almost real. And for all his flaws, Gwen knows that Arthur would rather hurt himself than hurt her.

And the same goes for Merlin, Merlin who is wiser now than ever before, with eyes that sometimes seem to be able to look through everything. Merlin who tells her that Morgana is alive but that he doesn't know where she is, that he has searched for her.

It matters not that they won't sleep together, not with the way they look at each other, with the way they talk to each other. It matters not with the way Arthur has come back to life, his voice loud once more, the charisma that made people love him so much burning brightly in front of everyone. Now Arthur smiles _at her_ again and Gwen could almost hate him for that, if she didn't know she had missed that as well.

"This is what I always dreamed of," Merlin tells her one day. Gwen wants her friend back, the one she could have told about how miserable she was, about her regrets. But they've all changed, fitting into the roles as if they were playing with dolls.

"I'm glad," she says instead, and Gwen wonders if her smile now looks like Morgana's did, those last few days, when she knew something was wrong but didn't know how to ask.

...

In her sweetest, most precious dreams, she is seventeen once more, nothing but a maid, lady Morgana's maid. She dreams about the laughter, about Morgana's wit, about her temper, about the fierce loyalty she displayed to those she loved. She remembers how she had felt when she realized that she belonged there, in the protective circle Morgana had for just a few.

And she remembers, pale careful fingers holding the flowers she brought to her, and Morgana's beautiful smile. She remembers her laugh, the sweet warmth of her eyes, of her embrace. Oh, if she had known back then what she does know. If she had known, if she had known. Gwen tries to think about Morgana's scent, tries to picture how it would have been to kiss her, if she had dared.

But she didn't know and thus that happiness is lost now, with nothing but contentment to help her with. She wonders if Morgana remembers her still, if she realizes – as Gwen does know – what it could have been.

"Milady," Lancelot starts, and his voice hurts, his worry for her hurts as he holds her hand. She feels she's breaking down and she remembers what she once told Merlin, about just wanting a normal man, a normal family. "Milady, is everything alright?"

She's not queen Guiniveve, she's just Gwen, normal Gwen. The Gwen that once upon a time might have fallen in love with Lancelot, not the Guiniveve who is now thinking about loneliness shared, about the true promise within Lancelot's dark eyes, about the sweet love he seems to offer without cares.

"Yes, Lancelot," She smiles, squeezing his fingers just for a moment. "Everything is alright."

He smiles and bows, ready to walk behind her again. She remembers.

She's not just Gwen anymore.


End file.
